Thank you Andrew for basing your decision on the facts, unlike Abbott & Barnaby Joyce with their negativity and whingeing.

It is unfortunate that as in so many things, where we could have led the way in this new area with intelligence and inventiveness, we are tagging along at the rear trying to keep up, even buying our own technology back from overseas because there was no funding to develop it here.

Good to hear.  Thanks Andrew, didn’t expect any different of course ;>!

Now Australia can reclaim its title as the Clever Country, but this time around let’s try and support and commercialise the innovations IN Australia this time around as noted by Salamander (#1).

But the Zinc and Aluminium smelters must stay.  What sublime hypocrisy!

Thank you for your valuable work Andrew, and the comments of Salamander #1 and Corey #2,

Yes, the day after tomorrow we have a great chance here in Tasmania to get on with addressing the challenges and opportunities.
One key aspect is to use a whole-life-cycle-assessment- process to identify what is the best option for decentralised energy conversion of renewable energy.
It is time to imagine and plan with the local communities around the state how to optimise or Island’s opportunities and needs.
Salamander #1 is spot on: “It is unfortunate that as in so many things, where we could have led the way in this new area with intelligence and inventiveness, we are tagging along at the rear trying to keep up, even buying our own technology back from overseas because there was no funding to develop it here.”

This also applies to the Biochar and Slow Pyrolysis opportunity, there is a real silence and lack of interest by the environmentalist movement, because of fear, angst, and lack of trust.
They traditionally know how to say NO! They like to keep it that way as it would require a change in thinking and planning and action.

To be frank, the Australian and Tasmanian Greens together with the ENGOs in Australia need to do their homework on this. The have to go beyond fear and mistrust and hate, and start to explore the options and opportunities, restoration of soil, landscapes, clean air, increased food and pure water, resulting in meaningful “green collar” employment opportunities.
When the time is right, I am looking forward to the many positive workshops and brainstorm planning sessions around our Island.

For the direction look to the
Australia and New Zealand Biochar Researchers Network
http://www.anzbiochar.org/about.html
Jump to “What directions may future biochar research lead?” ‎: Research in Japan and in Germany has indicated that biochar can complex the ...

#3 If the zinc and aluminum smelters relocated then the scheme would result in an increase, not a decrease, in CO2 emissions in total.

Yes, #3 the smelters are energy intensive, but surely it is better to have these industries here using clean energy than on the mainland or overseas using coal generated electricity.
Thanks Andrew for applying the common sense which the state government lacked.

good to see you continue to plug the number one self appointed mouthpiece .

The sooner the left come out and state their true goal which is ultimately the de-industrialisation of the economy the better !.

The only ones who are going to benefit from this are Ib’s selling hedging products or taking the other side of the market .

It is utter lunacy to think otherwise . 

a convenient truth being not so conveniently talked about is the Gordon Below Franklin .

Hello ?? anyone for all the hypocritical whinging about renewables and basslink this scheme is now worth a fortune .  Hopefully   someone has the foresight to resurrect it .

A factor which has not been mentioned here which will turn you Greens in your grave is the value of Gunns plantation estate if this goes through.  The value of the carbon credits to them alone may be significant , an irony if I ever saw one !

What a mess

Yes Frank a closed mind is what the other side is usually accused of, biochar needs investigation but not to find an excuse to get at natural forests.

As the smelters hydro electric component of energy will not release Carbon in its generation those smelters located here are about to get a Carbon tax bonus. Some of that should return to Tasmania in an additional charge on the contract, That will not hurt the major power users competitiveness and will assist with paying for the backup Bell bay plant.

Wilke should do his best to ensure that when more of Tasmania’s forests are conserved the Carbon sinking they do can provide a return to the Tasmanian people. The local Labor government appears incapable of grasping such a concept and taking it anywhere.

Basslink ensures Tasmania’s energy is not renewable, but contaminated with every kind of fossil fuel based electricity generated on the mainland.  How else could the government buy electricity from a Queensland power supplier?  If you really want Tasmania to be a ‘clean energy state’ then cut Basslinsk - and save the $90m annual rent as well.

Re Gunns plantations; they are only worth anything as carbon stores if they remain standing. 

Similarly, Lala’s recent media release on ‘maximising our carbon opportunity’ seems to have missed this essential point - that in the likely scenarios determined at the December meeting of the UNCCC i Johannesburg, it will only be avoided harvesting that will qualify for carbon credits.  That is, only if you intended to fell a forest, and then did not, and will not for at least 25 years, that there is any carbon value.  The allocation of carbon credits to already protected, standing forest, is much more controversial and less likely
see http://www.media.tas.gov.au/release.php?id=32766

So why should these smelters continue to be subsidised by Tasmania taxpayers to consume hydro power at low cost?  Many Tasmanians are now turning to wood heating because of high electricity costs.  There were many voices on TT that were not so long ago calling for these industries to be closed down.  Now that Mr Wilkie has spoken, they have fallen silent.

wilkie is great & doing what he should & promised the voters who voted him into parliament. - look after tasmanians interest & especially the battlers.

tasmania should be net beneficiaries when the loot etc is spent in tasmania which should be much more than tasmanians pay in carbon taxes.

pity if the warming of tassie is put in reverse or stopped though.

& tough for the wa & qld residents if there is more looting from the qld coal miners & the wa iron ore miners to pay for it.

- serves the mainlanders right - they should never have supported the federal government in stopping tasmania from building the gordon-below-franklin.

Well, Th (#7), I for one am perfectly happy to say that the de-industrialistion of our society is something we should be preparing for.  Not having the capital, nor the political clout, to influence the course of development means that it would be absurd to claim de-industrialisation as a ‘policy’. 

As endless growth is impossible, the current production modes are heading towards obsolescence.  ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ become irrelevant in the face of climate change, peak oil and the need to work towards a more sustainable, equitable and co-operative society.

As for the Gordon Below Franklin, how would we be paying for it and for how long?  It would have been an economic as well as an environmental disaster.

Given that it seems unlikely to actually reduce CO2 by any meaningful amount, this whole thing would appear to be little more than a scam environmentally, economically and politically.

It’s a tax. Nothing more and nothing less. No amount of trying to fool people that it has something to do with the environment changes that reality - it’s a tax which, in 2015, becomes yet another way for investment banks to boost their profits through trading operations.

In short, it would seem to be much the same as the EU’s failed scheme. No real emissions cuts, just a transfer of wealth into the hands of traders.

#5 & 6 It is only a matter of time before Rio Tinto relocates its smelters to China or elsewhere offshore. Australia has become too expensive to do business.

#14 I suspect you are right.

It seems to be widely accepted that WA’s economy is doing well on account of that state’s mineral wealth. That being so, I challenge anyone to explain why mining benefits WA but the big smelters etc supposedly do not benefit Tasmania?

As anyone involved with fabrication, engineering etc small business will know, we’re pretty much stuffed in Tasmania if Nyrstar, Temco etc shut their doors. The trickle down effect is massive with those industries just as it is with the mines in WA. In both cases direct employment is relatively few, it’s the downstream effects that count economically.

re #5, #6, #10 & #14

tassie much better off selling the hydro power to the vics as peak hour power at market prices than at shonky discounted prices to the protected rio smelter in the tamar & to the hobart zinc works which is now seen to be under wilkies protection..

tassie will really clean up with carbon taxes, when the gordon-below-franklin construction is recommenced.

presume have to wait for the tassie & fed greens & the tassie & fed labor left to be vanquished before this latter will eventuate.

Shaun (#15), the ore in WA is cheap and the Chinese don’t have enough of it.  The labour in Tassie is not so cheap and the Chinese have plenty.  Simple market economics.

#17 That is a reason why mining ore in WA might be more profitable than smelting it (or anything else) in Tasmania.

But it does not explain how major industry in one state would be subject to trickle down economics that benefits the entire state, while major industry in another state supposedly is not.

You don’t need to be the proverbial rocket scientist to realise that there is indeed a substantial flow on benefit from the major industries operating in Tasmania.

Personally, I have never been employed by any of them and yet I’ve still made quite a few $ once it’s all added up. Looking at my own workplace (in a service industry which doesn’t deal with any of the major resource companies), fully two thirds of the workforce has some historic connection, either directly or as some sort of supplier, to the major industries in Tas. The impact there is a lot greater than some would have us believe.

If the profits are bigger, the trickle down effect is bigger, (1) because the wages are much higher so employees spend more per head, and (2) because profits (a small portion of them) get re-invested in the local community.

I agree there would be a huge impact on the Tasmanian economy if the big metal treatment plants were to close down.  If the WA mines shut down I reckon the impact would be worse.

But it is only a matter of degree.

ref #19

ordinary tasmanians not favoured by special deals from the lab-greens & mr wilkie much better off if the tassie hydro sold to the big metal treatment plants is sold instead as peak hour power to the vics whose latrobe valley brown coal greenhouse gas generators are gunna be shut down.

do your sums on the employment subsidies per man employed in these smelters, which is effectively paid for by tasmanian battlers..

if the wa mines shut down, the wa economy should slow & interest rates in australia & the australian dollar would be lower & all manufacturers & their employees (& their suppliers & their employees)  who are still alive after this carbon tax will be better off.

#19 The lack of decent wage jobs in Tasmania outside of the big companies is the main thing I’m worried about.

There’s an awful lot of Tasmanians battling away stuck in low wage, dead end jobs. It’s sad to realise that $50K is not a good wage, and yet it’s far more than many Tasmanians are able to earn given the state’s reliance on low skill, low value added “service” industries.

At least the big factories pay reasonably well.

#20 It is physically impossible to sell more than a very small percentage of the Hydro’s output at peak prices. The generating system itself can’t sustain that sort of operation, it necessarily operates with substantial output 24/7, and Basslink can only deliver 594 MW to Victoria.

If we sold energy to Victoria rather than the smelters then the vast majority of that would be at baseload prices not peak.

In recent times we have in fact been exporting rather a lot - at prices under 3 cents a unit which is less than I understand the major industries are paying. And, of course, there’s virtually no jobs to be had exporting electricity when that electricity is from wind, hydro or gas.

Unless we’re going to build a coal, nuclear or wood-fired plant (which I do not advocate by the way) then there aren’t too many jobs in a power station.

re #21

that power the hydro is exporting at less than 3c per unit - i did not know that the dams were full & overflowing.
- who is paying for the bass strait cable & transmission & conversion losses

is the tas government ( government departments) on behalf of the tasmanian people importing that same power back & the tasmanian departments (& other buyers who do not have to buy from aurora) , are paying mainlanders for it & undercutting the tassie power sellers. - who is paying for the bass strait power transmission etc. for that.

but then the tassie government has appointed politically corect & sound people to this hydro & other boards , who they the tas government ministers say are independent, but are proving to be inept & incompetent or worse.

am i missing something.

#22 The nature of the hydro-electric system in Tasmania is that it was built for baseload production. Not one single generating set in the entire system was intended for peak load operation. Not one. And nor was any of the hydraulic design intended to be used this way.

In short, production can not be efficiently dropped below the yield of the minor storages (which are 60% of total annual output and at times such as now are over 100% of local demand at off-peak times) and can not be held above the total of minor storage yield + major storage release for any length of time.

In practice, what that means is that imports via Basslink will only occur when rainfall in the recent past has been low to moderate even if the major storages were empty. And peak output will only be reached occasionally.

The system just can’t be run frequently at the extremes - it’s very, very different to the Snowy scheme for example which was built for peak load operation but has close to zero output outside those times.

The notion that we could import overnight and/or export flat out all day doesn’t match the engineering in terms of the system either hydraulic, generation or transmission.

If we stop using electricity to smelt aluminium or zinc then the practical reality is that we’ll be selling it in direct competition with baseload generation in the other states (in practice, largely in competition with NSW and SA rather than Vic).

We already sell all the peak load power we can, limited by Basslink capacity and the market itself. Closing a smelter doesn’t change that.